Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
23. Primulaceae, the Primrose Family
2. Lysimachia L. -- Loosestrife4. Lysimachia thyrsiflora L. -- Water loosestrife
Stout erect perennial from rather thick rhizomes, 3-7 dm tall, usually simple or occasionally branched from lower nodes, strongly punctate throughout with dark glands; stems glabrous or brownish-villous in patches. Leaves opposite, sessile, the lower ones reduced, scalelike and scarious, the main cauline and upper leaves lanceolate, elliptic-lanceolate or oblanceolate, 4-13 cm long, 0.6-3.5 cm wide, glabrous above, glabrous or sparsely villous beneath, acute to acuminate, often blunt, cuneate at the base. Flowers small and numerous, in dense axillary racemes, the racemes bracteate, globose to ovoid, 1-3 cm long, 1-2 cm thick, on peduncles 2.5-5.5 cm long; bracts linear-subulate, 2-5 mm long; pedicels 0.5-4 mm long. Calyx strongly punctate, deeply (3)5-7(9)-parted, the lobes lance-subulate, 1.5-3 mm long; corolla lobes usually equal in number to the calyx lobes, often streaked or punctate, linear, 3-5 mm long; stamens usually 5-7, much surpassing the corolla, anthers 0.5-0.8 mm long, on slender filaments; staminodes none. Capsules 2-4 mm in diameter, strongly punctate; seeds few, cocoa-colored, 1.2-1.5 mm long. Jun--Aug. Fens, bogs, springs, marshes, wet meadows and shores, where water is fresh, usually growing in shallow water; frequent in n, c and e ND; ne, s and the Black Hills in SD; most of NE; (Circumboreal, in N.Amer. s to NJ, OH, IL, MO, NE, CO, ID and CA).
 Lysimachia thyrsiflora. |
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